Maija Soderholm: Sonny Umpad, set patterns and meta-methodologies

Fascinating interview with Maija Soderholm who is one of the very few inheritors of Sonny Umpad’s Visayan Escrima system….what makes this so interesting is that Sonny insisted Maija never teach set patterns. Rather his method as she now passes it on, is ‘alive’ from day one: once you’ve learned to not get hit, only then do you treat the fight like a series of problems to be solved, centring on the importance of reading your opponent and then getting your them to do what you what you want them to, either through feints, set ups or downright psychological trickery…What’s more, these lessons in ‘fight IQ’ constitute a meta-methodology that can be applied to any fighting system or range…http://randykinglive.com/podcast/ep-49-maija-soderholm-author-of-the-liar-the-cheat-and-the-thief